The industrialist is having his aeroplane serviced. The priest is wondering what he said in his sermon eight weeks ago about tithes. The generals are putting on civvies and looking like bank clerks. Public officials are getting friendly. The policeman points out the way to the man in the cloth cap. The landlord comes to see whether the water supply is working. The journalists write the word People with capital letters. The singers sing at the opera for nothing. Ships' captains check the food in the crew's galley.Car owners get in beside their chauffeurs. Doctors sue the insurance companies.Scholars show their discoveries and hide their decorations.Farmers deliver potatoes to the barracks.The revolution has won its first battle: That's what has happened.

. . .

Tonight I tried to remember this poem for J, the one that was taped on the window of Pegasus Books in Berkeley, which I had read while waiting for Kat. J and I were standing in Ryohei's kitchen, which is, incidentally, the kitchen of my estranged brother. Knewman snapped a few pics of us on his digital camera. Somewhat of a Luddite by lack of money, I'm still astounded at how you can crop a flick by simply pressing a button, zooming in and out with ease, erasing a hand (or a sister) with incisive (or foolish) aplomb.

Deth walked out. Angry as fuck. That's my brother: bottled rage, fizzing under a lid waiting for just the right lighter to pop it open.

Everyone at the goodbye-Ryohei party was clumsy, their third or fourth beer in hand. Manny broke more glass and told a few anecdotes about his (sometimes violent) father, the one who trekked to Mexico City at the age of 9, in search of new shoes. Yep. There wasn't a strip mall around those days. Later he told me my mother was coming to town. It's comedy, he said, your relationship to your brother. Yeah, you could say that.